Numerous studies point to the benefits of speaking more than one language, with research showing that bilingual adults have a higher volume of gray matter and could recover more easily from brain injuries.

大量研究表明会说外语的优势，一些研究证明会说两种语言的成年人在中枢神经系统有较多的灰质，并且这些人还能更好地从脑损伤中恢复。

Scientists have also found that the positive effects of bilingualism can be seen in young children, but a new study suggests that the benefits of exposing a person to more than one language can be seen even when we're just a few months old.

科学家还在幼儿身上发现双语学习的积极效果，最新的研究表明，多语言环境下成长的孩子，几个月就能体现出效果。

"Our results suggest that before they even start talking, babies raised in bilingual households are getting practice at tasks related to executive function," said neuroscientist Naja Ferjan Ramírez from the University of Washington. "This suggests that bilingualism shapes not only language development, but also cognitive development more generally."

According to the researchers, just as babies are about to turn 1 year old and start speaking themselves, they begin to make a change in how they process the sounds of spoken words, and this is where being raised in a bilingual household can be an advantage.

据研究者所说，当婴儿长到一岁开始说话时，他们开始改变处理语音的方式，这一点就能体现双语环境的优势。

"Monolingual babies show a narrowing in their perception of sounds at about 11 months of age – they no longer discriminate foreign-language sounds they successfully discriminated at six months of age,"said one of the team, Patricia Kuhl. "But babies raised listening to two languages seem to stay 'open' to the sounds of novel languages longer than their monolingual peers, which is a good and highly adaptive thing for their brains to do."

The findings, published in Developmental Science, are based on observations made of 16 11-month-old babies who took part in the experiment. Eight of the babies came from families where English was the only language spoken, whereas the remaining eight came from Spanish-English households.

The scientists used magnetoencephalography (MEG) imaging to monitor the babies' brain activity as they listened to an 18-minute stream of speech sounds specific to either English or Spanish, or common to both.

科学家一边用磁脑电描法监控婴儿的大脑活动，一边让婴儿听一段18分钟含有英西两种语言的音频流。

The team found that when listening to the audio, the bilingual babies showed stronger responses in their prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices – regions of the brain associated with things like cognitive processing and decision making.

研究组发现，双语家庭的婴儿在听这段音频时有较强的前额叶和眶额皮层反应——这是大脑有关认知和决策处理的区域。

Interestingly, the researchers found that the bilingual babies displayed neural sensitivity to both English and Spanish sounds, suggesting they were indeed learning both languages.

有趣的是，研究者发现双语婴儿对英西两种语言都有神经敏感度，表明他们确实在学习两种语言。

Also, the monolingual babies weren't any more sensitive to English than the bilingual babies, meaning the cognitive burden of being exposed to two languages wasn't slowing the bilinguals' learning rates, despite the double whammy.

并且，单语言婴儿对英语的敏感度并不比双语言婴儿高，表明双语言环境的认知负担并不会降低双语学习效率，尽管双语学习可能会造成语言混淆。

While the findings will need to be confirmed in a larger study with more babies, they could come as a relief to bilingual parents concerned that 'overexposing' their children to two languages might hamper their learning.

虽然这个发现还需要更多的研究、更多婴儿的参与来确认，但那些双语家庭的父母可以放心了，他们曾担心孩子同时学习两种语言会影响学习。

"The 11-month-old baby brain is learning whatever language or languages are present in the environment and is equally capable of learning two languages as it is of learning one language," said Ferjan Ramírez. "Our results underscore the notion that not only are very young children capable of learning multiple languages, but that early childhood is the optimum time for them to begin."